1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of cross-segment and cross-market competitive gaming.
2. Description of Related Art
With the introduction of Communication on the Move (COTM) or Communications on the Pause (COTP) systems, commonly referred to as mobile terminal(s), there is a growing need and great concern to control the level of interference caused by small aperture antennas. Additionally, small-aperture static terminals exhibit the same interference issues, so both a mobile and a static terminal will generically be referred to as “terminals.” Interference that may be caused by the terminals may be in the form of Adjacent Satellite Interference (ASI), where the terminal's small aperture antenna produces a wide beam width resulting in adjacent satellites being illuminated, thereby resulting in interference to services on adjacent satellites. Larger antennas produce narrower beam widths, but they are generally used less in mobile or nomadic applications. Fantasy sporting leagues have a decades-long history in the United States, and in recent years have only grown more popular, with the Fantasy Sports Trade Association estimating that, as of 2012, 35 million American adults have played a fantasy sports game. Fantasy gaming is, however, not limited to sports and has entered areas such as finance, politics, and film actors. Although fantasy games may be based on different underlying markets or segments, what all fantasy games have in common is that they allow gamers to choose hypothetical teams of professional, famous, or other people and pit these teams against teams created by other players in which the scores to determine the winner are calculated from statistical compilations of real-world data.
As illustrated with the example of the most popular fantasy sporting game in the United States, fantasy football, participants act as if they were football team owners and build a team, by drafting and trading players, that competes against teams created by other participants where scores are calculated based on statistics generated by real-world professional football players. Various methods exist to calculate scores generated from the real-world statistics which have become increasingly complex as computer-based systems have become more prevalent.
Initial score calculation relies on simple tabulations such as calculating the number of touchdowns and field goals an individual football player scores, and then each participant receives corresponding points based on if that individual player was on his team or not. The winner each week is determined by which participant has the team with the highest combined points scored from the individual players on his or her team. These score calculations are simple enough that the league commissioner, who has compile a weekly tabulation of each user's score, may calculate the points associated with each player without assistance from a complex computer system.
However, with the assistance of computer-based systems, broader statistical analyses can be done that incorporates a larger range of statistics associated with individual players and adds an element of “realness” that better simulates how the players might actually perform on teams comprised of the participants' choosing. This creates a more satisfying fantasy football experience. Statistics in fantasy football that may be incorporated by a computer-based system, for example, are the number of yards gained (through rushing or passing), sacks, interceptions, field goals, tackles, injuries, and the like. To use another example, fantasy baseball may include statistics such as RBIs, errors, stolen bases, home-field advantage, ERA, hits, on-bases, strikes, batting average, and the like.
The fantasy sports games that exist in the prior art have several drawbacks including the lack of user customization and the inability to combine players or statistics from different segments and/or markets.
So as to reduce the complexity and length of the Detailed Specification, and to fully establish the state of the art in certain areas of technology, Applicant herein expressly incorporates by reference all of the following materials identified in each numbered paragraph below.
U.S. Publication No. 2009/0270177 represents one attempt at establishing a fantasy football game system using a networked computer system. This application's significant disclosure relates to calculating a fantasy football score with placekickers eliminated from the statistical calculation based on placekickers' unique relationship to the rest of the football team.
U.S. Publication No. 2005/0209717 discloses a computerized system for generating and comparing competition data such as skill levels of competitors competing in a single or multiple sports leagues. The system relies on normalization of competition data to determine the relative skill level of similarly ranked player in multiple leagues. For example, the winner of one tennis league may be compared to the winner of a different tennis league to determine which player is actually the most skilled.
Applicant believes that the material incorporated above is “non-essential” in accordance with 37 CFR 1.57, because it is referred to for purposes of indicating the background of the invention or illustrating the state of the art. However, if the Examiner believes that any of the above-incorporated material constitutes “essential material” within the meaning of 37 CFR 1.57(c)(1)-(3), Applicant will amend the specification to expressly recite the essential material that is incorporated by reference as allowed by the applicable rules.